


the music inside

by lostinwander (flusteredkeith)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alicia Keys - Freeform, Canon Universe, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, In which Keith is Alicia Keith, M/M, Making Out, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Pre-Kerberos Mission, SHEITH - Freeform, Serenading, he is singing to shiro, singing Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 14:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8582791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flusteredkeith/pseuds/lostinwander
Summary: “Hearing you hum that song back to me…I decided that life was too short to be stubborn.” He pushed off from the wall behind him and began to walk forward towards Shiro. “Once I got to that point, I realized there was nothing else stopping me.”--Keith swears that being a pilot and learning to sing have nothing to do with each other. Shiro, on the other hand, begs to differ.(Inspired by a video of Steven Yeun singing.)[#he is singing to shiro]





	

**Author's Note:**

> In which Keith becomes Alicia Keith.
> 
> I just had a lot of feels once I heard [this video of Steven Yeun singing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHJkLuZD64) okay?
> 
> (p.s. listen to that song as you read this fic for maximum feels)

It always started with a hum, absentminded and under his breath. The first time this happened, Keith was lying with his hands tucked under his head, elbows brushing against Shiro’s side. Light from the afternoon sun fell in sporadic rays through the leaves shading them from above, casting the perfect amount of warmth. Feeling content and at peace, Keith was hardly aware of the sound coming out of his own mouth. It was only until Shiro noticed and turned his head to look at him that Keith broke off, the soft murmur in his voice turning into a cough.

“You never told me you could sing,” Shiro said. Keith looked away and scowled.

“I wasn’t singing,” he mumbled, which was the truth. Humming was different, and even then, it didn’t have any bearing on whether he could sing or not. Singing required a skillset he was not quite familiar with. As an aspiring fighter pilot, Keith had never once strayed towards the arts. He just didn’t see his mind as something that could really work that way. Music and flying? He found very little correlation between the two.

“Well, maybe you should,” Shiro said, closing his eyes and nestling his head deeper into the grass beneath them. “It sounds really pleasant.”

Keith’s stomach squirmed when he saw the smile Shiro had on his face as he complimented him but the comment didn’t quite fit with who Keith was as a person. Removing his hands from under his head, Keith crossed his arms and huffed.

“But I’m a pilot, not a musician,” he said, trying to bring Shiro back to the same plane of thought. “I’ve never touched music in my life.”

“Your Linkin Park playlist begs to differ,” Shiro said, suppressing a laugh.

 _“You know what I mean,”_ Keith said through clenched teeth and he could feel the rumble of Shiro’s chuckle reverberating from the older man’s chest. “The life I live and music—they’re basically on opposite ends of the spectrum and—alright, cut that out, it wasn’t _that_ funny.”

But Shiro wouldn’t stop laughing so Keith elbowed him playfully in the ribs.

“Ow—okay, okay,” Shiro said, still grinning as he waved Keith’s elbow away.

“I’m a pilot, not a singer,” the younger man insisted.

“Why not both?” Shiro asked. “The two subjects are not as different as you think they are.”

“Enlighten me,” Keith retorted sarcastically, settling his head back down on Shiro’s arm where his neck fit comfortably.

“Let’s think. You’ve already got your instinct and intuition as a pilot. Hardly anyone at this school can match yours. Are those not two important qualities you need in music as well?” he asked. “And not to mention motor skills can be considered an art form too, you know. Both are right-brain functions.”

Keith turned his head up to look at him with a raised brow. The sincere look on Shiro’s face confirmed that he was actually being serious but Keith didn’t care if there was truth to what Shiro was saying. Music was never a part of his life and he couldn’t see how it ever would be.

“I don’t sing,” he said in a firm voice. “And not only that, you can search all the other universes in the galaxy and I doubt you’ll find one with me singing in it.”

“Well, that’s just a shame, then,” Shiro said, bending the arm that was under Keith’s neck so that his hand could reach over and ruffle Keith’s hair. “I would’ve wanted to hear more.”

“Tough luck,” Keith said in his usual flat tone, but he smiled anyways at the tingling feeling Shiro’s fingertips left as they trailed across his scalp. No matter what the older man said, it would take a miracle for Keith to sing.

—

That was the first time. Shiro had stopped suggesting him to pick up singing after that but he never stopped Keith from humming for as long as they both could help it. The problem was that whenever Keith had a quiet moment with Shiro, the relaxed ease he felt often lowered his defenses, making him vulnerable to that sort of foolish behavior. It always started the same way; with a low rumble at the back of his throat crescendoing into an unbidden melody that Keith had never meant for to leave his lips. It wasn’t until Keith realized how silent Shiro got that it would register in his mind that his voice was wandering again.

“I hate you,” Keith told Shiro when this happened for the upteenth time. Shiro, in response, merely grinned with a knowing look in his eye. It was past midnight and they were sitting together on a cliff’s edge overlooking the Garrison and gazing up at the stars. There was just something about the way Shiro’s frame fit in with the scene of the night sky that moved Keith into something as poetic as a song. That, and the fact that he knew Shiro would soon be on a flight to Kerberos. Time was short. The culmination of it all made Keith susceptible to ridiculous notions such as humming.

 _I just want you close,_ the words played in his mind.

“I’m telling you, Keith,” Shiro said, shaking his head. “In the time that you’ve continually denied your potential to sing, you could have picked up a musical instrument by now.”

“It just doesn’t interest me,” Keith shrugged. “We’ve gone over this.”

“I know, I know,” Shiro said consolingly. He continued to stare at Keith with a soft expression until Keith’s ears began to burn. Extending his arm and draping it around Keith’s shoulder, Shiro pulled him closer. “Don’t worry, I know there’s no way I can convince you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“What about things I _want_ to do?” Keith asked, his eyes staring up into Shiro’s. Their faces were close; Keith could hear his heart pounding in his ears as he determinedly kept his gaze from wandering over to Shiro’s lips.

Shiro gave him a sad smile and, bringing a hand up to weave his fingers through Keith’s hair, drew his head closer to touch his lips to Keith’s temple. “You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

“What, so you want me to sing but you won’t let me kiss you?” Keith countered. At his accusation, Shiro withdrew his arm and looked back up at the stars with a sigh.

“You know why,” Shiro said, leaning back on his elbows.

Keith knew he was leaving in a week, knew it would make sense to wait until he returned, but when it came to Shiro, being sensible didn’t seem to matter to him. The only thing stopping Keith from grabbing Shiro’s shirt by the collar and pulling him down to meet his lips was pure and utter respect for the man.

So he stayed silent and looked back up at the stars, not knowing that he would soon spend the next year searching the skies every night with a dying hope in his heart. At the thought of being left behind, the same melody from before started playing in his head again.

 _‘I just want you close,_ _where you can stay forever.’_

As he stared at Shiro out of the corner of his eyes, he made an especially stubborn effort to keep the tune from slipping out of his mouth this time.

 _‘And I don’t worry ‘cause everything’s gonna be alright…’_  

As if hearing his thoughts, Shiro spoke up again.

“What were you humming anyways?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” Keith lied.

—

Nothing was going to be alright.

_“All crew members are believed to be dead...”_

Keith had thought that he didn’t have an ounce of the musical arts within him, but now he realized his mistake. Knowing what he knew now, if he were honest with himself, there had always been a hint of song in him all along, but whatever infinitesimal amount had been there before, he was certain now that all of it was gone, shriveled up and vanished—the same way Shiro did.

_“...crash caused by pilot error…”_

After he was expelled, Keith ran until he couldn’t hear the music, ran until he couldn’t hear anything at all anymore, not even Shiro’s voice. Shiro’s voice, which was calm and soothing, and always encouraged him, always challenged and believed in him—Keith threw his helmet on and muffled all sound. He ran until his mind became deaf to the sound of music, until there was nothing left but the ghost of Shiro’s voice and the broken pieces of a dying song.

_‘You will always be around, this I know for certain.’_

Whenever those lyrics came creeping back, he’d shut it out. There was no place for music in his current wasteland and he was determined to keep it as barren and empty as his soul felt in the aftermath of Shiro’s disappearance. But no matter how numb or how badly shaken he felt, he knew there was nothing else to be done except to plunge forward. He was a survivor. From a young age, he had learned that even when life seemed like it ended, he had to keep moving, no matter how dead he felt inside. Therefore, although he had no idea where or what he was looking for, he wandered through the desert in search of something—anything—that could prove to him that there was still some hope left in this world.

Sometimes, the music still found him. It haunted him in his dreams—a warm summer’s day shared with Shiro beneath the oak tree. Shiro chuckling and staying quiet as Keith absentmindedly lost himself in melody until he got caught. Shiro teasing but hoping Keith’s quiet hums would grow into song. A gentle brush of Shiro’s hand against his cheek, but never more than that. They never had enough time.

_‘You can be sure, that it will only get better…’_

And then there was silence.

—

There was a something different about the atmosphere that night that made the air feel charged, crackling madly with electric current. A whole year of searching with no real turn-ups, and then a sudden gut instinct that gripped him from nowhere. None of it should have made sense, but after a long time of not finding answers, somehow, the gut instinct seemed to click in Keith’s mind.

And so he followed it. Prepared to face anything, no matter how extraordinary or unbelievable, he drew near to the Garrison, ready for combat. Having spotted the falling ship from afar, he knew he had seen it before anyone at the school could’ve and acted upon it at once. Using a series of missiles as a diversionary tactic, he flew into the tent, hoping against hope for a sign—any sign.

And that was when he found him.

Keith thought he’d been prepared to face anything, however crazy, however wild, but upon seeing that familiar face again, scarred and battered, he realized just how wrong he had been.

_“Shiro?”_

But it wasn’t Shiro as he knew him. His hair had turned wispy white, the veins along his face were agitated and stressed, and there were scars all over his body. The man was badly shaken but finding him alive and breathing seemed to bring Keith back alive too, and before he knew it, the song inside reawakened.

_‘…everything’s gonna be alright… ‘_

Keith didn’t think twice before cutting him loose.

—

They never had enough time. Before that day was over, they had fallen through a wormhole and been recruited to become paladins. The universe was on the line. Everything else took a backseat. Nevertheless, despite how often he now saw Shiro alive and breathing before his very eyes, Keith knew he could never forget how close he was to losing Shiro for good. Multiple times. There were too many close shaves. It changed the way Keith looked at the man. At every opportunity he got—and there really weren’t very many—, he allowed his eyes to take in Shiro, scars and all, because there was never enough time to fully appreciate how much Shiro meant to him. In war, their lives were fragile and at risk at any given moment.

It was the scarcity of it all that caused him to do it. Well, that and the brief conversation they had after defeating their first Robeast. After the excitement of their one small victory had passed, Keith found himself cleaning his knife in his bedroom when Shiro showed up at his door.

“Mind if I come in?”

Keith looked up towards the older man without batting an eye. He still couldn’t get used to seeing all those scars.

“No,” he said, lowering the knife down to his lap and leaning back against the headboard. Shiro stepped in and sat against the wall at the far side of Keith’s bed.

“Great job, by the way. Punching your bayard in, I mean,” he said in a maddeningly formal tone. “I see your instincts are as sharp as they’ve always been.”

Keith didn’t respond at first. He wasn’t sure how to speak to him under this new dynamic of being roped into the responsibility of defending the universe and it struck him suddenly that this was the first time they had been alone since that night they spent on the cliff’s edge.

“It was all Red,” Keith shrugged, fiddling with the knife in his hands.

“Give yourself a little more credit than that,” Shiro said.

Keith shrugged again and continued polishing his knife for a lack of better things to do with his hands. The conversation prompted him to replay the battle in his head. Them being knocked down over and over again, Shiro saying he remembered having a sword, Red’s subsequent revelation to Keith to use his bayard…

_Shiro remembering._

“Shiro,” Keith said, setting aside the weapon on the floor next to his bed.

“Yeah?”

“You remembered more from your time in captivity.” It wasn’t a question. Keith swung his legs around to sit at the edge of his bed. “Do you…?”

Keith stopped. He wanted to question Shiro further but wasn’t sure how fragile his mind would be despite his earlier flashback and their consequential triumph, and he didn’t want to overwhelm the already confused man. Despite Keith’s misgivings, however, Shiro responded anyways.

“I still don’t remember too much,” Shiro sighed. “I actually just got back in from talking to Pidge outside. I remembered enough to give her hope about her family. I wish I could remember more than that but… Perhaps that’s all that’s needed right now.”

“Maybe,” Keith said. He flung his legs back onto the bed and slid his back down along the mattress until his head was resting on the pillow, trying to make sense of the idea of _‘that’s all that’s needed right now.’_ Shiro was always thinking about other people first. “What about hope for yourself?”

They fell into silence, Keith lying down with an arm over his forehead and Shiro with a knuckle supporting his chin. Although Shiro had walked in all prim and proper, Keith felt the black paladin’s formality melt away as he fell into deep thought at the question. A sudden familiar chuckle caused Keith to turn his head sideways to look over at Shiro.

“Now that you mention it,” he said, smiling at Keith. “You gave me hope.”

“What?”

“I mean, I really don’t remember much,” Shiro explained, “so it’s all very vague and dark still. But oftentimes auditory memories leave a longer lasting impression than visual memories.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Keith dared to ask, unsure if he liked the direction this was going.

In response, Shiro began humming a tune Keith recognized at once. It was the last thing Shiro had ever heard Keith hum and the last thing Keith himself had hummed before Shiro’s disappearance killed the music in him. Keith simply stared, enthralled. Although the melody coming out of Shiro’s mouth was slightly disjointed, leaving cracks in the continuity of the song, Keith heard the lyrics in his head as he listened to Shiro’s soothing voice.

_‘…where you can stay forever… ‘cause everything’s gonna be alright…’_

“Ah, I can’t do it as well as you do,” Shiro said, shaking his head. “But I heard it in my head sometimes, which helped keep me sane. That’s all I really remember though. Just an echo. But it was enough.”

Keith meant to say, “I’m glad,” or “that’s good to know,” but a lump had risen in his throat and he realized that words could no longer do justice in expressing how he really felt. Instead, he got up from his bed and, walking across the room to kneel before Shiro, wrapped his arms around the older man’s neck and pulled him into his chest. Shiro’s human arm snaked itself around Keith’s back and held him by the waist.

“It’s a shame you didn’t know what you were humming,” Shiro said, his voice muffled through Keith’s shirt. “I would’ve liked it if it was a whole song.”

Keith’s eyes widened with mild guilt and he tightened his grip around Shiro’s head. Even though he was first and foremost a pilot, Keith decided then that if music played any part in preventing Shiro from dangling over the edge, it was much more important than he initially gave it credit for. Life was fleeting and unpredictable and they never had enough time. So what was holding him back now? 

His stomach churned uncomfortably when he realized he could deny it no longer: there was absolutely nothing holding him back now.

And thus, on a random afternoon, after making sure that nobody else was around to witness him creeping upstairs to the royal advisors’ sleeping quarters, Keith poked his head in the Coran’s room. With shifty eyes and back slouched low, the young paladin wanted to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. 

The red-haired man was sitting in his bed reading a book in a language Keith didn’t understand. He didn’t look up even when Keith stepped in through the doorway so Keith cleared his throat to announce his presence.

“Coran?”

“Yessum?”

 “Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away, m’boy.”

Coran’s eyes shifted up to examine his visitor but otherwise, made no other movement. Still feeling rather doubtful about this whole situation, Keith almost wished Coran had said he was too busy to talk. It wasn’t too late to turn back now. But then the sound of Shiro humming flitted through his head, rooting him to the spot. Although it was going against everything Keith had ever believed about himself, he willed himself onwards.

“Do...uh, what do Alteans usually do for music?”

“Music?” He stopped reading and looked up at Keith.

“Yeah, music.”

“Well, let’s see,” Coran replied, setting aside his book and putting a finger to his chin in serious consideration. “There are ceremonies of sorts, festivals and celebrations, if you will, involving music and song, in which Alteans congregated together, maybe a few times on the astral conflux, and partook in the traditions of—”

“Coran,” Keith interrupted, forgetting that broad questions and ramblers don’t do well together. “Let me put this in the most straightforward way possible: do you know what a guitar is?”

“Um, no,” he said. “Can’t say that I do.”

“Well, it’s a musical instrument with strings and you’d hold it like…” Keith trailed off, bringing his arms up uncertainly, his left hand holding the handle of an air guitar and his right hand coming to rest in front of his stomach, as if about to pluck imaginary strings. “Like this? And there are strings here for strumming.”

He wiggled his fingers in what he hoped would convey to Coran the method of guitar playing, to which the mustachioed Altean merely tilted his head in deep thought.

“If I didn’t know better,” Coran said. “I’d say you look like you’re playing a Quandora.”

“A wha—? Um, right, that.” Keith was used to Coran spewing foreign Altean talk by now not to try and question it. “So what exactly does it—um, this…”

“Quandora?” Coran prompted.

“Er—yes,” Keith said. “What does it look like? Can I see it? If you’ve still got one, that is.”

“Oh, sure,” Coran said, walking over to his closet and rummaging through his belongings. After a few seconds, he pulled out an instrument that looked to Keith like a mix of a lute and a banjo. It was white and had a half-acorn shaped bottom with a hollowed out hole in the center and a long handle with five strings. “Ah, this old friend. Oh, dear. It’s probably out of tune, the poor thing.”

“Do you know how to play it?” Keith asked as Coran began to fiddle around with the pitch of each string. The notes fluctuated with each turn of the tuning knobs, grating on Keith’s already tense nerves.

“I do indeed,” he replied, puffing his chest out. “I have many a Spicolian movement played, not just for my own enjoyment, but for King Alfor himself, mostly for pure recreation of course, but sometimes I had to lead our little group for the annual Celebration of the Y—”

“That’s great,” Keith cut across him as he closed the bedroom door, hoping nobody had heard them talking or the wavering notes of the instrument. “I just have one last question.”

“Ask away, ask away,” Coran said cheerfully, running a finger across the strings in a final strum and closing his eyes as he savored the sound.

This had got to be the most reckless thing Keith had ever done, and he had to admit he’d done some pretty reckless things in the past. Taking a final deep breath as he came to terms with the fact that he really was going to go through with this, he opened his mouth to speak.

“Can you teach me?”

—

If the rumors were true, and it really had been over a year since Shiro had embarked on the Kerberos mission, then his twenty-third birthday was coming up soon. Of course, being unexpectedly summoned to the herculean task of defending the universe, Shiro didn’t expect any recognition or acknowledgement about it and vowed not to ask for it either. Therefore, when nobody—not even Keith—said anything at the breakfast table regarding his day of birth, it didn’t bother him too much. Considering how far away from Earth they were, it was unrealistic to expect Keith to realize when exactly it was. There were more important things in life to get upset about.

After their afternoon training session ended, he took a shower like any other day and stayed in his room before getting ready for dinner. Life at the Castle of the Lions didn’t change much but he didn’t mind. Twenty-three was not too special of a year anyways.

And so when he opened his door to go to dinner, he was surprised to find Hunk and Pidge standing there at the entrance with a plate of what he suspected was Hunk’s knowledgeable and selective range of alien desserts, carefully arranged in a tower of sweets that Shiro had to admit actually looked good.

“Happy birthday, Shiro!” they said with glowing smiles on their faces. He stared at them both with a blank expression, hardly daring to believe they had somehow known all along.

“Uh, wow, thank you,” Shiro said, taken aback. He took the plate from their hands and smiled at the creation. Did this mean the whole team knew? “This looks amazing, guys.”

“I know, right?” Hunk said, glowing with pride. “It took us about five days to perfect it.”

“And, uh, we might have lied about why we needed to leave practice early today,” Pidge said, her buck teeth showing in her wide trademark grin.

“Yeah,” Hunk said. “Lance wanted to join in too but it was mostly so that he could mooch off all our hard work, but fortunately, I put a stop to it at once because he would have just ruined the whole thing.”

“And it would have looked too suspicious anyways if _all three_ of us left early from training,” Pidge said.

“Of course, he mostly just wanted to leave early for training,” Hunk added.

“But then _Allura_ got wind of it and had to put her foot down on his ditching—”

“And of course, the rest is history…”

And as they rambled on and on, Shiro couldn’t help but feel a warmth spread throughout his chest to his fingertips. His team knew all along and were going out of their way to make him feel special on his birthday. It was more than he could have ever asked for.

When they arrived in the dining hall for dinner, Shiro found that the two giant doors were closed. With excited grins and knowing looks on their faces, Hunk and Pidge took hold of each handle and pushed.

“Surprise!”

Shiro staggered backwards and nearly lost his balance as Allura and Coran jumped out of nowhere to throw their arms around him. The hall was filled with a delicious smell, causing Shiro to lift his head and fully take in what was before him. When the two Alteans released him and stepped back, Shiro saw that Allura had decorated the entire room from the walls to the table to the chairs with paper cutouts of the black lion’s head and that Coran had cooked up Shiro’s favorite alien dishes. It was all a little too much to handle.

“I… I don’t know what to say,” Shiro said in amazement, looking around at the whole setup. Allura pulled out the seat at the front of the table and he sunk into it, admiring the food. “This is amazing guys. I can’t thank you all enough.”

“Hold the phone! The party don’t start ‘til I walk in!”

With a loud bang, Lance burst through the doors and skidded to a halt besides Shiro, bending over to catch his breath. Looking up at the older paladin, Lance’s face brightened and he clapped a hand on Shiro’s shoulder.

“Happy birthday, man,” he said.

“Thanks, Lance,” Shiro grinned. 

“So, since these losers here were too cool to let me cook with them,” Lance began, drawing out a card and shoving it under Shiro’s nose. “Look what I made you instead!”

Shiro took it from his hands and, looking down at it, had to suppress a laugh. There on the front cover was a truly terrible drawing of the black and blue lion sitting together that befitted the skill level of crayons and stick figures. Having no crayons on the ship however, Lance had gotten by with a pen that Shiro suspected he stole from Pidge and coloring tools that were most likely Altean, of which Lance most definitely didn’t quite know how to use.

“Well, aren’t you gonna look inside?” Lance prompted.

Shiro obliged and opened the card to find the words “Happy Birthday, Space Daddy” written in big letters across the page. On the other side of the card’s interior, he found more drawings of lions, namely Green and Yellow looking morose and left out from not being on the front cover with Blue and Black. He had to admit it was extremely endearing. 

“Thanks, buddy. I’ll…” Shiro trailed off as he turned the card over. Upon closing the card, his eyes had fallen onto Lance’s childish doodle of Red sulking on the back cover and his heart sank with the realization that someone was still missing from the celebrations. For some reason, Keith hadn’t shown up to dinner yet. Being late was no big deal, but as the one person who for a fact knew Shiro’s birthday, Shiro had hoped Keith would’ve been here before the party had even started.

“I’ll treasure this, Lance,” Shiro finished, forcing the corners of his mouth to curve into a smile. “Thank you.”

Lance’s eyes shone with glorious excitement and his lips curled up in glee. Even though Shiro was the birthday man of the hour, he was glad a simple sentence could throw Lance into such a happy whirl.

“Alright, now that we’ve got Lance’s ego boost out of the way, can we start eating?” Hunk asked.

“Where’s Keith?” Shiro asked.

At his question, everyone looked around, trying to find the answer in each other’s faces. When it was clear nobody knew, Lance shrugged and spoke first.

“I think he stayed in the training room later than any of us. Maybe he’s still showering?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Pidge said, screwing up her face in concentration as she thought back. “He basically lives in there, doesn’t he?”

“Should we wait for him?” Allura asked, turning her head to Shiro. “You are the birthday boy after all.”

Shiro wanted to say yes but when he thought about the effort the rest of the team had put into making the night special, he didn’t want to force everyone to wait up just for Keith.

“I’m sure Keith can take care of himself,” he answered. “I don’t think he’d mind if we started without him.”

“Alright, digging in,” Hunk said, reaching out for the closest dish without further ado.

But Keith didn’t show up all night. Shiro felt a restless tugging that seemed to nudge him harder and harder as dinner went on. As much as he had tried not to set any expectations on the others for remembering his birthday, he had to admit that the idea of Keith being the only one to forget made his chest feel hollow. Seeing the others so cheerful on his behalf, however, was enough reason for Shiro to keep up the joyful demeanor for them, despite how concerned and disappointed he felt inside.

When dinner ended, he thanked them all and went to get ready for bed. As everyone was filled to the brim with food and happiness, they all agreed to turn in early for a good night’s sleep. Although Shiro genuinely had a great time, he still found himself sitting in his bed with his back against the headboard and wondering what happened to Keith. Perhaps the red paladin was so tired after training that he fell asleep. Shiro wondered if he should go check up on him to make sure the younger man was doing okay, but if Keith was already sleeping, then Shiro didn’t want to disrupt his peaceful rest either.

_Check up on him, or let him be? Walk over to his room, or stay in bed?_

But before he could make up his mind, he heard the swoosh of his bedroom door being slid open and looked up at his visitor.

There stood Keith with a serious look on his face and a blazing fire in his eyes. It was the determined expression Shiro had come to associate with Keith when he had his mind so set on something that nothing in the entire universe could stop him.

“Hey,” Keith said.

“Hello,” Shiro replied.

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday party,” he said. He was still lingering by the doorway with his hands behind his back. Shiro found that he didn’t care for an explanation; he was just glad Keith was standing here now. 

“I thought you’d forgotten,” Shiro said, a smile tugging involuntarily at his lips.

“Me? Never.”

Keith fidgeted uncomfortably, turning his head left and right to look around behind him. He couldn’t seem to decide whether to come inside or not so Shiro figured he ought to help the guy out.

“Why don’t you come in?” Shiro asked as he shifted his legs so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed facing Keith.

“Right,” Keith nodded as he stepped in and closed the door. Shiro squinted at the object Keith was holding behind his back and upon seeing a rounded edge peek out, was unsure if he was imagining things.

“Keith,” he began, lifting up a finger to point in the younger man’s general direction. “Is that… Is that what I think—”

“Don’t ask. Let me explain,” Keith said with a firm tone. Amused, Shiro sat up straighter in his seat, holding back the chuckle that bubbled at the back of his throat.

“So I’ve been thinking about your birthday for a long time, but being stranded on this castle, I couldn’t think what to get you,” Keith said, still trying to hide the object. “And incidentally, I’ve also been thinking about how just in the past year and a half, you’ve nearly… how I’ve nearly… nearly lost you. More than once. And, well… as I thought about your birthday, that on top of hearing you hum that song back to me from your time as a prisoner, I decided that life was too short to be stubborn.”

He pushed off from the wall behind him and began to walk forward towards the bed. “And once I got to that point, I realized there was nothing else stopping me.”

He came to a halt in front of Shiro.

“Stopping you from what?” Shiro asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He looked up into Keith’s face and saw a deep tenderness reflected in those intense indigo eyes.

“Showing you how much you mean to me,” he said. Then, with one sweeping movement, he pulled out the object from behind him to reveal a lute-like instrument and held it like a guitar, sliding a gloved hand up the handle to rest at its proper position.

Shiro felt a familiar lighthearted warmth spread from within his chest as Keith took a seat next to Shiro at the edge of the bed with the musical instrument on his lap. Taking a deep breath, the red paladin ran a thumb over the strings. The notes reverberated in Shiro’s ears as the first thing he’d ever hear Keith play.

“I don’t believe this,” Shiro chuckled, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you actually—”

“I can’t either,” Keith reassured. Then his lips curved into a small smile. “But I have a confession to make.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” Shiro asked.

“You know how you caught me humming again that night on the cliff’s edge right before you left?” Keith prompted. “The same tune you said you heard while you were in captivity?”

“Yeah?” Shiro raised an eyebrow, wondering where this was going.

“You asked me what song I was humming and I said I didn’t know,” Keith went on. His fingers found their place on the strings and he began to strum, striking up a melody with the beginning chords of a song. “Well… I knew.”

And then he opened his mouth and sang.

 _“I just want you close_  
_Where you can stay forever_  
_You can be sure  
__That it will only get better~”_  

If Shiro had thought Keith’s humming was the best sound in the world, he was wrong. His hum, while smooth and deep, was a mere shadow compared to the music Keith’s lungs were pushing out now. His usual low voice stretched and shaped itself along to the melody with ease, and even while it maintained its rough edges, it sounded like rich velvet to Shiro’s ears.

 _“No one, no one, no one_  
_Can get in the way of what I’m feelin’_  
_No one, no one, no one_  
_Can get in the way of what I feel for you_  
_For you, for you  
__Can get in the way of what I feel for you~”_  

There was something about the vision of Keith singing and holding a guitar-like instrument with his gloved hands that threw Shiro in for a whirl. It was so vulnerable and intimate. Perhaps it was the fact that Keith had said he was a pilot not a musician. For him to arrive at a place where he would willingly learn how to play music like this was no small feat. It was without a doubt the most special gift Shiro had ever received in his life.

 _“When the rain is pouring down_  
_And my heart is hurting_  
_You will always be around_  
_This I know for certain_  
  
_You and me together_  
_Through the days and nights_  
_I don't worry 'cause_  
_Everything's gonna be alright_  
_People keep talking, they can say what they like_ _  
_ But all I know is everything's gonna be alright~”

Shiro closed his eyes, allowing the song to fully absorb him until the rumbling timbre of Keith’s voice resonated in his chest. A sense of pride swelled in him as he continued to listen to Keith sing—he always knew those vocal chords were made for more than just snarky comments.

 _“No one, no one, no one_  
_Can get in the way of what I’m feelin’_  
_No one, no one, no one_  
_Can get in the way of what I feel for you_  
_For you, for you  
__Can get in the way of what I feel for you~”_  

And after holding out his final resounding note, Keith made one last strum and opened his eyes to look up at the taller man.

“Happy birthday, Shiro.” 

In the silence that followed the end of the song, Shiro felt a giant wave of gratitude threatening to spill over as the ghost of the last chord echoed in his ears. It was true that the red paladin was often a wild card who was difficult to predict, but as Shiro stared down at Keith, he found that surprises like these were what drew him to the younger man in the first place. When it came to Keith and his temperamental nature, Shiro always felt bolder.

Reaching out a hand to cup Keith’s cheek in his palm, Shiro slid a thumb over his bottom lip. At his gentle touch, Keith tilted his head upwards, his breath warm against Shiro’s fingertip as he traced along the curve of his slightly parted mouth. The fire in those violet eyes burned brighter than ever as they bored into Shiro’s, daring him to drown in them.

_‘And once I got to that point, I realized there was nothing else stopping me.’_

With his heart pounding loudly in his ears, Shiro leaned forward and pressed a soft lingering kiss to the corner of Keith’s lips. Keith responded at once, setting aside the alien guitar and grabbing a fistful of Shiro’s shirt, tugging him closer until their chests were pressed together. He could feel the fervent beating of Keith’s heart under his shirt as Keith’s mouth slid over to lock fully with his, eagerly parting open his lips. Shiro caught his bottom lip between his teeth and, bringing a hand up to sink his fingers into Keith’s hair, gently pulled his head back to deepen the kiss. Keith’s grip on his shirt tightened and he quickened the pace, his hungry lips moving with increasing urgency as their tongues melded together while his other hand wandered down Shiro’s chest, sending an electric tremor down his spine and causing a strangled groan to escape from the back of his throat. The sound seemed to encourage Keith and, as his hand slid back up his chest, he pushed, shifting his weight over Shiro and pressing him backwards. When Shiro’s head hit the pillow beneath him, Keith broke away to catch his breath, his eyes darkened and hair mussed.

It was so beautiful, Shiro thought, the sight of Keith hovering over him with shortened breathing and heavy lidded eyes, supporting himself with his arms at either side of Shiro and a loose strand of black hair still sticking to his cheek. When Shiro lifted a hand up to brush it away, Keith closed his eyes and melted into his touch.

“You’re amazing,” Shiro told him.

Keith smiled and leaned in closer, lowering his head past Shiro’s jaw. His warm breath tickled Shiro’s ear as he sang in a low voice.

_“You can stay forever.”_

To show Keith how much he wanted to, Shiro placed a hand at the back of Keith’s head and pulled him in for another kiss.

It all started with a hum, absentminded and under his breath, but as he felt Keith’s lips against his picking up right from the same rhythm they left off on, boy, was Shiro glad it didn’t end there.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on my tumblr, [flusteredkeith](https://www.flusteredkeith.tumblr.com)! :)


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